The OH: Healing from the Cambodian Genocide
Between 1975 and 1979, over 1.7 million Cambodians died in one of the bloodiest genocides in modern history. A radical Cambodian group known as the Khmer Rouge (KR) killed roughly a quarter of the population in four years. The KR sought a primitive utopia by eliminating western influences such as education, city life and religion. All foreign influences were to be extinguished in favor of an extreme form of peasant Communism. This KR ideology fueled executions, torture, disease, exhaustion and starvation, causing the estimated 1.7 million deaths.
Many Cambodians, escaped the war and arrived in Oregon and SW Washington in the early 1980s as refugees. Almost 30 years have passed and still many survivors remain traumatized, suppressing their memories because reliving is too painful an experience. As a result, many children of the survivors who grew up in America do not fully understand the psychological and physiological effects on their parents and grandparents. As time passes, we are losing our elders, their experiences, their stories and our history.
In an effort to preserve histories and encourage community members to speak out in order to heal, The Cambodian-American Community of Oregon (CACO) successfully applied for a grant through the City of Portland, Vision into Action Coalition in 2008 and subsequently received another generous grant from Northwest Health Foundation in 2009 to produce an Oral history documentary film. The purpose of this project was to engage our youth to interview their parents and/or grandparents and discover how they survived the atrocities. In addition, CACO feels this project would help other survivors heal by collectively sharing their stories and by having public acknowledgement. By having the youth understand their parents/grandparents history, they will hopefully appreciate the freedom and liberty they have; and take the opportunity to educate others about the effects of genocide.
19 youths/young adults chose to participate in this project. Before the interview and filming, participants were asked to enroll in the Oral History workshops to understand more of what an oral history is, what to expect during the interview process and what types of questions to ask.
Each participant enrolled in a two session workshop, for a total of six hours. The first round of workshops were conducted in November 2008. Second workshops were in March 2009.
The interviewing/filming began on April 3rd, 2009. A second round of interview/filming started on May 23rd. Each interview lasted upto two and half hours.
On August 15th, 2009, CACO had the premier showing of OH: Healing from the Cambodian Genocide at Portland State University‘s Khmer Rouge Tribunal Public Forum II (KRT2). The film is about 35 minutes in duration, including the credits and outtakes. The KRT2 forum was a follow-up to a forum held in 2007, to educate and bring awareness about the current Khmer Rouge Tribunal that is going on in Cambodia.
The Oral History film is being screened at High Schools, Universities, neighborhood associations and non-profit institutions around town.
Follow Us!